Thakoon / Spring 2014 RTW

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To anyone around in, oh, let’s say 1998, the list of considerations for what to wear next spring might be eerily familiar, being as follows: something lingerie-inspired, all silky and slinky and slippery, suspended from the skinniest of shoestring straps, in the kind of colorways that were once dubbed oyster and blush; sportif tanks, body-skimming in shape, with perhaps a deep neckline; and pants, plenty of them, cut straight and lean and ultra-long, worn with a pointy shoe, the trouser hem not revealing much more than the tip of the toe and a high spindle heel, with nary a platform in sight. The nineties, in particular the Manhattan nineties, ruled by Calvin and Donna and Helmut, has hung in the air these past few days of the New York spring 2014 shows like a freshly spritzed dose of CK One.

That era certainly lightly scented, though didn’t douse, Thakoon Panichgul’s very fine—and in places disarmingly gorgeous—collection. (We will forgive him the singular strange aberration of a glossy patent leather fetish bra top and pencil skirt; Panichgul later said it was meant to be an arresting moment of awkward beauty, so I guess consider the job done.) The show alluded to those heady days with its pairing of trouser after trouser with masculine shirting reconfigured into slouchy tunics worn artfully tucked in, and delicate tops worked with gleaming and glinting embellishments, like the crystal embroideries strategically placed to enhance a décolleté or a shoulder. It was the looks in that zone that provided the standouts, including a black crepe back satin and lace camisole worn with a navy satin pant cut on the bias, an inky blue satin coat, the sleeves scissored off, over ivory chevron-textured wide trousers, and the latest hybrid, the jumpsuit that makes allusions to underwear, by virtue of its lace and the narrowness of its straps.

Before the show, Panichgul recounted that he been thinking about “looking at classics, boiling things down.” He continued, “I don’t know what luxury means anymore, in this day and age, so I decided to go back to the basics of a wardrobe—lingerie, a tank top, a man’s shirt, a piece of denim . . . but then twisting them, deconstructing them, so they’re not obvious.” That, in the end, was what elevated his spring away from some misty-eyed vision of the decade that gave us grunge, minimalism, and Kate Moss, to somewhere that read like it belonged in this day and age. It helps, of course, that Panichgul is an intelligent designer, capable of imbuing clothes with a playful, unexpected, and prettily perverse, even, sense of femininity. And so it was here, from that fragmented jeweling, to the eclectic collision of fabrics (high twist cotton, duchesse silk, gazar, bonded denim) to the tiny purses worn across the body, suspended by ultra-long freshwater pearl straps.